Improvised Baking

In the US, before I moved to India and my new hobby became being deliberately obstructive to pushy people on the Delhi metro, I used to enjoy baking. I had mastered cookies, brownies and other such basic deliciousnesses, and had just moved on to more difficult pies and breads. However all that came to a screeching halt when I moved to a country in which ovens are not considered a basic kitchen accessory.

Yeah, weird, huh? Indians don't use ovens! Tandoor ovens, giant clay ovens in which the temperature commonly reaches 900 degrees F., are used in Mughal cooking for meat dishes and flat breads. But these are massive great objects, often built underground, and are never found in private homes. Baking foods such as leavened loaf bread, cakes, brownies, pies and cookies is virtually unknown. Rich expats in Delhi will sometimes go out of their way to procure an oven, but our poorly furnished apartment in Delhi certainly didn't have one. So I resigned myself to a year-long hiatus from baked goods.

However, on returning to India from a New Years trip to visit my family, I was met with a wonderful surprise. You see, it appears that my boyfriend is actually MacGyver, and in my absence, he made an oven out of a sheet of aluminum siding. Wanna know what he used for tools? One nail, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and a pair of children's safety scissors. Oh yeah, and an empty champagne bottle (for a hammer).



This wonderful device is powered by resting it atop the gas burner, just like a camp oven. It very quickly gets up to temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C. Getto, you are thinking? Au contraire! It works like a dream, and I have personally used it to make an apple pie, peanut butter cookies, buttermilk biscuits, and most recently, double chocolate brownies! Impressed? R. is a renaissance man, no doubt.